Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Rhind Mummy under the scanner

Two thousand years ago, using state-of-the-art mummification techniques, a mummy was entombed in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes. Now, using state-of-the-art High Definition Volume Rendering(R) software from California-based Fovia, Inc. to virtually unwrap the artifact, National Museums Scotland together with a team of radiologists and a forensic pathologist from Edinburgh University has learned a great deal about this wrapped female mummy, who died when she was in her mid-to-late twenties.

The mummy, known as the Rhind Mummy, was discovered by Alexander H. Rhind, a 24-year-old Scottish Egyptologist who brought her back to Scotland in 1857. Rhind, a brilliant scholar known for his systematic work, left the contents untouched, which was unusual during the time of "Mummy Mania" when mummy unwrappings were common. He was critical of so-called "archaeologists" whom he claimed indulged in little more than looting by unwrapping mummies, as it destroyed the carefully preserved relics.

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This blog was set up in 2004 to aggregate news about Egyptology and related topics from online sources on a regular basis. It was closed finally in September 2013 due to other commitments. It has been left open as an archive, but comments have been disabled.